The curious Manhattan real estate market seems not to have yet even swayed in the quake/wake of the current financial upheavals. It's almost as if here on the Upper West Side, neighbors say to each other "Too bad about what's happening downtown."
As if it won't touch us. As if it happened on a Pacific island.
Just across the Park, in Joey's, Dr. Jeff's and RJ's neighborhood, there's an "Open House" at the newly constructed Laurel where the cheapest studio (635 square feet) may be had for $915,000. That's less than a million bucks.
The foreigners who buy these boxes may think they are living in a fashionable Central Park neighborhood. It is indeed fashionable, but it is too far east to relate to the Park.
Living on Central Park means you have to be able to walk out of your apartment with a mug and the paper and get to a bench in the Park before the coffee is cool. And, it means you have to be close enough to hurry back to your bathroom without agony when the coffee kicks in. Manhattan is extremely neighborhood-specific. Agents do not tell you these things.
One odd side effect of the financial crisis might be a further stabilization of the Manhattan real estate market. There will be those whose investments and income will be deflated. They may shed property, but there are foreign buyers and others who have pulled cash out of the market and will be looking to park it. Could be a wash. And the bail-out might make this discussion pointless.
For the moment. Prices seem to be unchanged.
"Perge modo et qua te ducit via dirige gressum," said Venus to Aeneas.
1 comment:
Your comment about NYC being neighborhood specific reminded my of Orange County, CA real estate. There it is city specific...identical houses on opposite sides of the street can be valued very differently.
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